Tentacle-Free Anime: "URDA: The Third Reich" (2002)

Every so often you find an anime that's not really well known and it turns out to be something you just have to talk about (whether it be for better or worse). And in this day and age, where there really isn't much in the way of anime that aren't well-known in some way, we must look to the past for those underground projects during a time when not everything was already widely available.

Summary: This fictional story took place in Europe around 1943. At that time Nazi secretly plotted a plan called Urda. Two agents, Janet and Erna received a task to investigate and prevent the completion of the secret plan. [MyAnimeList.net]

I originally saw Urda as a kid, when I rented it from the recently defunct Hastings video store as it was released as a 30-minute movie on DVD here in the States. Whatever my true feelings on it were as a kid are lost to time, but ultimately at some point I associated the “movie” - which is actually 5 short episodes spliced together – as being horrible. Possibly because of its not very good 3D animation.

Click to enlarge

But that's not really fair, as there are quite a few wonderful stories that exist that have bad animation. So I recently bought Urda to add to my collection and re-watched it just to see how bad or good it really was. Ultimately, it was somewhere in the middle.

The first half of this adventure isn't very good, with the clunkiness of the animation - especially during the action sequences – and the over-reliance on story tropes overpowering what could be a cool, nuanced spy thriller. Tropes such as the villain, Glimhild, of course being a stark super warrior that can take on Erna and over-power her in combat, as well as Erna of course being Glimhild's daughter turned traitor and joining with the Allies.

There's also a shower scene with Erna that just falls flat on the sexy-meter and everyone who's a main character in this story is of course super badass and able take out the no-name Nazi soldiers with little effort. Again, story tropes run rampant.

However, something changes during the second half of the story, once we begin incorporating the sci-fi elements. There's definitely a step-up in animation quality, even if it's not totally noticeable, and there's also quite a few great directional shots. Also, this show's take on wormholes is actually really damn cool. What begins as a WW2 spy story becomes a time-travel epic that, when I stop to think about it, I don't think is that bad.​

From a WW2 spy thriller

Throughout the narrative, Erna discovers a young girl from NASA, who has a mysterious secret that will quite literally shape Erna's life from this point on and then some. She's being hunted by Glimhild and so Erna and her partner Janet must protect the girl with their lives. I don't want to give away what the secret is, but it's a pretty cool take on the traditional time travel story.

I think the action set pieces are interesting and get at least cooler in the second half of the story, rather than the first half where everything simply feels misbegotten and unfinished. But the character scenes are where the story shines, even if some of them can be really trope-heavy. I enjoy most of the characters and there is definitely some interesting character growth throughout the story as well.

However, because of Urda's not-great animation and trope-heavy narrative (at least at the beginning), I don't find that many people will enjoy this. I'm not even going to go as far as to say that Urda is a nice diamond in the rough, or jewel in a trash pile that is overlooked. It tries to be a little more than just a cool action piece, but ultimately it IS a cool action piece.

To a sci-fi time travel epic

There's a bunch of epilogue cut scenes as well, which I think go a long way to enhancing the story further up until the very final epilogue, which in my own personal opinion undercuts the entirety of Urda as a story just because it adds to some of that trope-heavy narrative style.

If you do watch Urda, don't try to see it as more than it is, but do try toappreciate it for what it tries to be. That, in my opinion, is what makes for a good viewing experience with this anime. I'm not gonna recommend it, but it's not a terrible option to throw on if you're just looking for 30 minutes to kill or to just expand your viewing palette of anime.

Final Score: 2 Time-Space Wormholes out of 5

​Have you seen URDA? Disagree with Kazekun's lack of wormholes or is he completely justified? Let us know down below!